


Jazztronauts: An Attempt at Novelization

by Newbiespud



Category: Garry's Mod, Jazztronauts
Genre: Gen, Novelization, POV First Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 00:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15852837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newbiespud/pseuds/Newbiespud
Summary: Making a novel out of a mod's story mode ain't the easiest undertaking in the world.While stumbling through Garry's Mod maps looking for a worthwhile experience, a lone player encounters four strange walking, talking cats. Are they unusually well-programmed NPCs? Are they other human players deeply immersed in some kind of hi-tech RP? Whatever the case, they have an offer that sounds like a lot of fun: Go to random maps on the Workshop, pillage its trash for money, then return to converse with the higher-dimensional cat overlords.Ample opportunity to investigate the mystery of the Band and the Bar Samsara, and maybe make some friends along the way. All from the safety of your computer chair. Sure, why not?





	Jazztronauts: An Attempt at Novelization

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unofficial novelization of the Jazztronauts mod for Garry's Mod. I am in no way affiliated with the mod team and do not have permission to use their story. The original credited writers for Jazztronauts are Jared Lord and Kathy Jones.

**Loading** **'mycampaign_1'**

The progress bar hangs for an unusually long time at around the 60% mark, which doesn't fill me with confidence. It wouldn't be my first crash today.

Another couple of white rectangles pop into the progress bar! And then another hang. I glance down at my lightly dusted computer tower, wondering if this is the moment that ol' Frankenstein finally kicks the bucket.

Ambient audio abruptly appears in my headset, so it seems like the bucket of bolts will live another day. I look at the screen just in time to see a message on the UI overlay: 'Mission Goal: Provide Support To Rebel Base Under Attack'.

Well, that's disappointing.

The underground concrete hallway I have spawned into looks at least competently constructed. I move my mouse and look around the virtual space – no weapons, nothing behind me. There's only one way forward. I reorient myself and commit my middle finger to the W key for the next little while. My character moves forward.

My lower back reminds me that my sitting posture is beyond terrible, and I haul my real body back upright. No doubt in a few minutes, I'll be so slouched again that my chin is resting on my chest.

The camera shakes, the level rumbles, and I enter a room where crates and monitors and other physics objects are tossed and tumbled around. It only lasts for a few moments and doesn't make my eyes hurt. My opinion of the map rises by a few notches. What a restrained little set piece! What a neat bit of environmental storytelling!

My heart falls through my stomach. How have my expectations fallen so low so quickly?

The left corridor ahead of me is collapsed and on fire, whereas the right corridor is clear and well-lit. Whoever made this, they at least had environment art and basic level design down pat. Shame about that fourth-wall-breaking UI objective thing, though. That was swiftly becoming a pet peeve of mine, one of many.

I progress through the next few rooms… slowly. The Source engine never fails to unnerve me, even when nothing is happening. I keep expecting a headcrab to latch itself onto my camera when I turn every corner. If I don't pay attention, I might stumble into one of those freaky sticky tentacle-trap monsters. I'm a big baby, is what I'm saying. A big baby who never finished Half-Life 2.

The passageway opens back up, and I'm on the other side of the burning rubble in a large room. The good ol' lambda symbol is on some bricks to the left, and there's a half-open garage door ahead.

"Help!"

"Run for your life!"

I'm a little taken aback. Canned voice clips? What are they coming from? I see some feet passing by the open section of the garage door. One stops and turns around. More sounds – some gunfire, a revving engine. Something BIG flies by the window. An impact, and a screen-shaking crash.

The garage door sparks and lifts just a little bit, then all the way up. There's three dead rebel NPCs on the floor in front of a burning oil rig. The room has fallen still again.

I step out into the underground tunnel beyond. Nothing living is left, and there's no indication of what just flew by and exploded, save for a radial blood smear where I assume one of the rebels had been standing. An almost-chuckle builds up in my chest and a corner of my mouth turns upwards.

The passageway to my left is collapsed and the steel gate at the other end is closed, so my only way forward is a doorway leading to an upward stairwell. I check around the bottom for anything useful, but nope – just a pallet and an open locker. Up the stairs we go.

Three flights pass and there's an open door, but the stairs continue so I go up to check. But no, a red light and a closed gate at the top. This path is still determined to be linear as hell. So back down and through the door.

First thing I spot is another dead body next to an overturned chair. Sensing a pattern here. Weirdly, when I try to walk up to the body, there's bits of invisible geometry stopping me from walking over him. Though it's not perfect, and the 'footstep' sound for walking over the dead man's waist is more than a little unsettling. When I finally look around, it becomes clear that I'm in some kind of planning room that's been hastily turned into a defensive chokepoint – props again for the visual storytelling.

There's a turret mounted on some debris to the right, so I race over to the handles and press E. No response. Alas, no machinegun for me today.

There's a green crate near another bloody corpse (or rather, a frozen ragdoll with blood spatters painted on the floor and adjacent wall). To my surprise, it DOES respond to my mashing E, and it opens up to reveal weapon magazines. A few of them disappear when I approach, and the UI informs me I've received 300 Pulse Rifle ammunition. Excited, I dart around the room looking for a spare rifle that maybe one of the rebels dropped. The room isn't very large, so it doesn't take long to determine that I'm not getting my precious shooty-bang yet.

I could probably crouch through the gap in the barricade, but there are headcrab-zombie bodies on the other side and I don't want to tangle with the possibility that they're gonna pull the ol' "you thought I was dead but I rise when you least expect it" trick. I turn around and head down the remaining hallway to the left.

Ah, a rebel impaled against the wall by a ten-foot steel pole. Lovely. And he's facing down a hallway– YIKES! Just _filled_ with zombie corpses and blood. This is maybe too much. At least none of them are moving, but I still move forward hesitantly.

There's a spark and a groan as I reach what must have been an event trigger. Beyond some steel bars ahead one of the zombies pulls the ol' "I rise again" trick and starts shambling in my direction. There's a small gap in the fence between me and it, and I don't _think_ it can fit through and take a swipe at me… but I'm still too fresh at this to assume much.

With a loud metallic CRUNCH kind of sound that makes me wince, something big and three-pronged rips through the wall and slashes through the zombie, sending it back to the ground. After making sure it seemed to be gone, I tried to find what kind of trap had been set off, but there was only three large gashes in the stone and a black void beyond.

Jumpscare count: Officially at 1. Any more of those and I was out.

I'm unable to pass through the metal gate, so my path loops past the mounted turret's line of fire and beyond. I stop a few meters away from a brightly lit blue door and take a mental inventory. I decide that I'm not going to disconnect just yet, and continue forward.

BE-BEEP. The blue door disappears and there's now a completely incongruous brick hall leading to some upward stairs, lit an imposing red. Also, church organ music.

Jumpscare count… 1.1?

My pinky finger slams on the Shift key and I book it up the stairs. I pass by a pile of burning wood overlooking… a black rocky abyss, spanned by a metal bridge leading to another brightly lit stone doorway. Similar gates and bridges are the only landmarks out in the blackness. I stop on the bridge and look around for a bit.

I was getting vibes from the ending of a different first-person-shooter. What, was I passing from one alternate universe to another? Was that why the door had suddenly changed? I now had no capacity to predict what kind of journey the map author was taking me on.

Gritting my teeth a little in the real world, I sprint across the rest of the bridge and up the long, long red stairs, for multiple flights. At the top of the last one, the path opens up to some kind of basement workshop, with a ladder ahead leading up and out. A pure-black figure waits near the ladder. In my sprinting zeal, I rush towards the shadow and he instantly disappears from sight. I'd only seen it for less than two seconds total.

Outright jump-"scare" count: Still at 1. Jump-"spooks," however: 2.

I look around the basement for anything useful, but it's utterly plain save for the section of wooden floor that has been torn away to make room for the stone stairs. I jump around the ends of the loose floorboards for a bit, peeking into the corners perhaps hoping for secrets, but to no avail.

There's no telling what's above the ladder. From directly under it, there's only inky blackness above. My courage is beginning to wane.

I climb up the ladder and _immediately_ look to the horizon once I'm level with the ground. I'm standing amidst a ruined burning foundation. Spooky wind sounds start to play in my ears. There's a dark forest all around and street lamps lighting the only way forward.

I'm really not sure if I want to continue.

There's lots of space, so I advance with zig-zagging diagonal sprint-jumps. I wonder how ridiculous I look. There's a small house along the way, and I step inside, hoping that at last there will be some refuge or explanation or even a weapon. No, nothing of interest but a tiny, static-spewing TV.

Scaredy-cat fear and petty frustration go to war in my emotional cortex, paralyzing me for a few seconds. Eventually, weary resignation wins out, and I force myself to continue through the dark forest.

I resume jumping at alternating 30-degree angles. Somehow it helps.

In the darkest part of the forest is an imposing stone chapel. The blackened trees on either side box me in to the only entrance. I'm really ready to slam that Escape button at a moment's notice now – I did NOT sign up for this.

The simple entrance to the chapel is a single corridor barely wide enough for one body. Worse, it steadily shrinks in height until I'm forced to crouch. There's a ventilation duct ahead, with a bright wall a short distance inside. I already know this is going to be bad. Visions of getting jumped and my screen flashing red and my headphones filling with heart-thumpingly loud noises cross my mind. I slip one headphone off my ear, use my mouse-hand to cover part of my screen, and steadily inch forward.

Something changes, and I lift my screen-covering hand to check – oh fuck, the end is now a black wall with red eyes staring back at me, making hissing sounds. It's not doing anything yet, but fuck. Do I have to walk into it? I slip my headphones all the way off and cringe my way forward…

The ventilation duct disappears? I'm standing before a stone balcony. Alright, now I'm curious. Pretending I was never scared at all, I climb the short set of stairs and look over the edge.

A ring of torches lights up in sequence around a central stage, revealing…

Oh.

Oh, that's disappointing.

Whatever huge imposing thing was supposed to be in the middle of this satanic ritual zone or whatever, its texture is _messed_. _up._ Maybe even the model, too – I can't even tell what it was supposed to be in the first place. It's clipping into the ground at an angle.

Well, that was anticlima– Wait… There's something else on the stone platform. Several somethings else.

They're… cats? In suits?

New noises besides the burning faintly reach my ears from the headphones resting around my neck. I quickly put them back on. There's voices. There's voices?!

"…Holy shit… Look… at this garbage…" A really deep male voice with an accent, or an affectation, or… _something_ I could not immediately place. This voice isn't coming over any sort of chat; it seems to be in the direction of… the grayish-purple one. Cat. Thing. The one who's wearing the technicolor nightmare-coat. "…Whoever made this place really phoned it in, huh…" It takes me a second to realize he's jeering at the monster-mash in the center of the stage.

To his right is a black cat, and across from him is an orange cat. I spin my mouse around to make sure I'm not hallucinating things. Nope, they're still there. In the game. In the level. On that stage.

"Dunno what you expected," says a wry female voice, arriving approximately from the direction of the black cat, "it's pretty dead around here at this point." She folds her… paws(?) and tilts her head. At this distance, at this angle, I couldn't be sure, but it almost looked like she was… smirking? "The last place we looked? Could barely even call that a map."

"…Don't you fucking dare blaspheme dm_juicyasszone.bsp…," says the first cat, still in that weird tone I couldn't identify. "…It had a vision…"

A fourth cat, this one tan-colored in a purple suit, crawls out from under the monstrosity and dusts themselves off. They hold out their hands to the third cat, the orange one. Something shiny is in her hands– paws.

I'm literally scratching the side of my head at this point.

"Ah, a shard!" says the orange cat, clapping their paws together with a delighted look. Her voice is unfailingly polite and cheery. "Keen eyes as always." At this, the tan cat looks down at the stage and starts fidgeting bashfully. It's as adorable as it is utterly bewildering.

"Tch," mutters the black cat, unphased, "I can't believe we're doing grunt work."

"…Yeah, this is peasant shit," agrees the light purple cat, his smug smile falling into a tired-looking frown. "Why are we even bothering with this again…"

The orange cat faces the two of them, the monster-in-potentia between them. "Well, as I recall," she replies, "you were the one so very insistent on making our last guests leave."

The purple cat shakes his head. "…Oh sure, I'm the bad guy here, not the one who threatened to, and I quote, 'floss their teeth with their spines'…"

He very pointedly doesn't look at the black cat beside him, who shrugs and answers anyway. "They'd have been useful for once." The two of them scowl at each other.

"Oh come now, they were perfectly fine," the orange cat insists. "Besides, we got a bargain on them, didn't we? Take five, get one free!"

The duo glares at the orange cat, but then the silent cat starts waving their arms around.

"…Hey, you two can brood about your hangups later…" says the purple cat. I still can't figure out what he's doing with his voice. "…Pipes over there a way forward…"

The black cat's face twists up in a teeth-gritting grimace, her right eye twitching. She's gone from 'I don't care' to 'I am one inane stupid sentence away from snapping your neck' in less than a second. "Oh, sure, just remove yourself from the equation," she growls, a bit of cat-like snarling creeping into her tone. She visibly restrains herself just as fast. "Fine, let's go."

Almost as one, the cats reach behind them and draw a pistol each. I tap the Ctrl key out of reflex. Through the grates of the railing, I watch as the four cats all point their guns at the right-hand wall.

A moment later, they all disappear.

I move my mouse around, trying to find where they went. I don't hear any of their voices anymore. Was that… Did that just happen? Was that a normal event in this map? Surely I would've heard about this before if that was a deliberate part of the level… right?

I finally step away from the ledge and leave the view of the would-be horror behind. The door in the back isn't even a real door, so there's no way out. Or so I assume at first. To my right, there's an open trapdoor with light shining up from it. I have no idea what's going on, but all I know is that I can't end this here.

I crouch into the small opening and let myself fall through the latch. There's no ladder; just a three-story drop. I worry that my character is about to splatter and I'm going to end up all the way back at the beginning spawn point. But when I land, there's no flash of red and no EKG flatline sound. I'm in a shallow pool of water. I guess that's enough to prevent fall damage? I have no idea.

This new area looks completely unlike the spaces I've just been through, disconnected though they were. This space is more… for lack of a better word, stylized. Is this still mycampaign_1? There's a large empty room before me with a hole in the ceiling. A wall of identical crates kinda floating in midair blocks the way forward. Is this some kind of bonus secret zone? Or maybe, considering what I've just seen above, this could be a prototype testing area that the "real" map is built atop, left undeleted when the author gave up working on it.

While I ponder and search, there is a clattering noise in the center of the room. What looks like… a stun baton has fallen from the hole above.

"Nice job, asshole." The black cat's voice. They're still here! "Can't believe you tripped over a corpse. How many times have we had to step around dead bodies now?"

Ah, must be another zombie hallway up there.

"Not as many times as you had to." It's the purple cat's unplaceable voice. "I ain't the one who busts skulls, hell, I'm probably too blitzed to throw a punch without hitting myself right now…"

"I'm stunned." Yep, that's the orange cat.

"…Quit being a shitty actor and help me up, jackass. Wait… goD DAMNIT."

"Did you actually hurt yourself?" says the black cat, not sounding any more concerned than she has to be. "Hang on, let me break out the medi–"

"I dropped my prop snatcher down the fuckin' grate," declares the purple cat with a tad more lucidity. I move my camera view from the hole in the ceiling to the stun baton on the ground.

"Oh dear." It's the first time I've heard the orange cat sound remotely concerned, though still unfailingly chipper. "We'd best find a way down, then."

"We'd better. Things ain't cheap." The black cat's voice is almost drowned out by three sets of footsteps, and the sound of a person being dragged across the floor. "C'mon dumbass, let's go…"

The sounds fade away, and I'm left alone again with the stun baton. It occurs to me that those voices… the cats' voices… have studio-quality audio. You'd need very good microphones to sound that clear, and experienced voice actors to convey those characters…

One mystery at a time. I move across the stun baton. The UI informs me that I have just collected a 'Prop Snatcher.' The baton rises into view in my character's hand. I've forgotten which default playermodel I selected, but all I can really see of it is my blue-sleeved arm anyway. With this Prop Snatcher in my virtual hand, I make my way over to the crates. The round reticle on my screen highlights the nearest box within its radius once I get close enough. I click. I'm not entirely sure what happens, it's all kind of fast. The crate is carried off by something in a glowing blue beam and disappears through the ceiling. I'm too bewildered to do anything but click again on another box.

A T-posing Dr. Kleiner model, with a Physics Gun sticking out of his pelvis, carries the crate up with the gun's beam and floats through the ceiling, disappearing with a point of white light and a little 'ding!' My UI informs me that I've stolen 2 props so far, and that is somehow correlated to the amount of 2 dollars.

I'm frozen for a couple of seconds.

Then I wonder: _Does that happen every time?_

I mash the mouse button and sweep across a row of crates. Kleiner models abscond with the boxes like mischievous pixies at my command.

Oh, this fuckin' rules.

Two hallways stretch beyond the wall of crates, props littering the path. I discover that if I hold the mouse button down, the baton will 'auto-fire' and pick up anything my reticle passes over within striking distance. Chairs, crates, pallets, ATMs, barriers – NOTHING that isn't nailed down can resist this Prop Snatcher. I pass down a hallway where the windows shatter and reveal models hanging spookily in the black void, but I just take those too, and the frames while I'm at it.

I'm consumed by an incredible feeling of catharsis. I imagine all the hard work the author had put into this to try and make me shiver and jump in my computer chair. Then I imagine tearing it all apart. Then I don't really have to imagine it.

Pile of rocks in my way? Gone, one by one!

Why hello, Chef Vortigaunt, I'd like one order of YOUR PHYSICAL FORM, PLEASE.

Hey there, retro Metal Gear! Mind if I– Yep, you're coming with me.

Wow, so it really is everything that can be considered a 'prop,' huh? Every mound of rubble, every piece of bent rebar, every ruined wall slammed together to make this spooky maze… I'm seeing how these Source maps are constructed just in time to watch it all disappear, and it's bizarre and glorious.

WAH! Did those cars just growl at me? Well, here's my otherworldly revenge! Woah, they're the big monsters too… somehow?? Can I take– Yes, of course I can take them too!

In my mind, I'm cackling with unrestrained glee. In reality, I'm just grinning like an idiot.

Hallway after hallway, test room after test room, getting lost for a while and looping back a few times… I'm having a great time, and I feel like my eyes have been opened in some way I don't fully understand yet. But I'm starting to run out of things to steal, and I remember the cats from before. They'll be looking for this thing, presumably. It was time to see if I could find them.

Eventually, my rampage leads me through a clean white hallway and into some kind of dingy storage section – maybe a different attempt at making a 'proper' level instead of the wacky shenanigans I'd just passed through. As I turn the last corner, I hear muffled voices and shuffling. Sure enough, separated from me by a sheet of dirtied glass, the four cats are searching among some shelves of cardboard boxes.

The orange cat, who I notice is wearing a black vest and red bowtie, is doing most of the work. "Still no sign of that prop snatcher, eh?" she asks the others. "Ah well. It happens."

Most of them have their backs to me, and don't seem to sense my presence at all, so I simply watch them through the glass. Worst-case scenario, they're enemy NPCs who will start shooting at me if their AI can see me, currently prevented by the glass. Unlikely, sure, but there was no underestimating author errors.

"Yes, it happens…" the black cat mutters. I notice that the right sleeve of her black suit is rolled up. The black cat facepalms and glares at the purple cat in the eye-searing mismatched outfit. "And each time, it's the cellist who loses them. I wonder why."

The so-called 'cellist' shrugs. "Same," is all he says, in that weird tone of voice he has. I feel like I'm at the cusp of figuring it out…

The black cat tenses and looks ready to stomp through the concrete. "That was rhet–" She pauses abruptly. She seems to take a great effort to get herself back under control. It even looks like she mostly succeeds, even while the purple cat's grin keeps growing wider. And then she explodes anyway. "MAKING JOKES ABOUT BEING THE PROBLEM DOESN'T MAKE YOU NOT THE PROBLEM. If we had five wheels, you'd be the sixth."

And then it hits me. That purple cat… The 'cellist'… What he's been doing with his deep voice, where he sounds disconnected and far away, rolling in and out of each sentence without much in the way of emphasis or punctuation… I finally understand.

I didn't think it was possible, but here it is.

Verbal chillposting.

"ohhhh hell yeah some motherfuckers trying to serve up a plate of beef carpaccio in my house, better saddle up cause it's about to get real salty in here" says the cellist. "hey remember that time you accidentally tore a player in half trying to save them from a combine apc that didn't even have player collision enabled"

"Fuck you, that doesn't count," the black cat snarls. "That happened years ago when we had barely any idea how this shitty game engine works."

"you tore a dude in half trying to get him out of danger he was not in," the cellist fired back, his Cheshire grin somehow growing even wider. "because the cars were ghosts. you got spooked by ghost cars."

"Okay fine," the black cat grumbles, shaking her head, "but you somehow managed to lose a guest in fucking flatgrass."

"in my defense i was sober at the time"

"Oh mY GOD…!"

It doesn't get much better from there. There's a tangible tension in the air that I'm worried the glass between us might not be able to protect me from. Meanwhile, the tan cat in the purple suit starts looking around idly… and their eyes land on me. Looking straight into my camera. Uh-oh.

The cat looks back at the others, puts their paw to their mouth, and whistles. It's quite loud! The glass muffles it a bit, but even I wince and reflexively reach for my headphones. It has an even greater effect on the two bickering… talking… cats.

A rush of context hits me all at once and I reel in confusion.

Clutching her ears, the black cat shouts, "Fuck! Ow! How do you do that so loudly!? What!? Do you want!?!?"

In response, the tan-colored cat points frantically in my direction. I attempt to sidestep a bit and look behind me, but there's no one else around, and the cat adjusts her paw to point at me anew. They see me. They're reacting to me. I've been spotted.

The orange cat turns around and smiles warmly. "Ah. Would you look at what we have here? A guest!"

"Or competition," the black cat adds with a smirk and a sidelong glance at the orange cat. "You want me to–?"

"No no, I've a better idea," the orange cat replies. "You there! Through the window!"

I sidestep back and forth a few more times, and all four sets of eyes naturally follow me. I'm not sure what I expected them to do.

The orange cat is unphased by my impromptu dancing. "We've a proposition to make. The end of these tunnels is just a little ways ahead – if you'll meet us there, we'll give you the details." The orange cat walks out of the room and, after a moment's confusion, the other cats follow.

I tilt my head stiffly at my computer screen. Did that just happen? Was this still a part of the map? Was this all an elaborate, professionally voiced and animated, fourth-wall-leaning sequence that was baked into this… utterly unremarkable Steam Workshop download? In fucking _Garry's Mod_ , of all things?

I stand there for half a minute in dumbstruck silence, and then I make my decision: I have to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

There's a narrow passageway that I missed on my way in, and I follow it until it opens up to what seems like an underground rail tunnel. A couple of the cats wait at the end of the tunnel, standing in front of… what looks like a trolley car. It's dark, so all I can make out is a purple-and-pink paintjob.

As my character approaches, the orange cat waves me over. I tentatively move closer to them, irrationally worried about what might happen if I bump into them.

"Greetings," the orange cat says, looking up at me with her big dark blue eyes. "As you can see, this place does not seem to have an exit. While I'm sure you can leave through whatever way you came in, we prefer a different method of travel." She gestures behind herself to the trolley in the tunnel. I can barely hear the sound of a large engine idling.

Up at the windows, I see the walking fashion disaster known as the 'cellist' leaning out. "we have _such sights_ to show you"

The orange cat smiles broadly. "We certainly do! Our offer is simple: You may come back with us to our abode and entertain a job offer. If you aren't interested upon hearing it, you'll be free to go. Are you willing to hear us out?"

A silence ensues as I realize they're waiting for me to answer, looking at me expectantly. I shift forward and backward uncertainly, wondering if that might trigger their… next line of dialogue? What?

The black cat, leaning against the trolley, rolls her eyes. "Can they even hear us? Hey. Say something."

The 'cellist' guffaws. "please tell me they've been a non-english speaker this entire time and have NO IDEA what you're talking about"

Then a bit of text pops up on my UI.

 **Singer:** Type if you have to!

What?

I tap Y and sure enough, that was in the talk window. I tentatively type out 'Yes…?' and press Enter.

 **Me:** Yes…?

Almost immediately, all of the cats react.

"There we go," the black cat grunts, and starts making her way into the trolley.

"oh well" the 'cellist' shrugs. "i was gonna say 'i want to see the look on their face' but these aren't the most facially expressive types anyway"

The orange cat nods with renewed satisfaction. "Excellent! So with that squared away, are you willing to come aboard and hear us out?"

I barely manage to input my response before the full realization hits me.

 **Me:** Sure… Why not?

They're reacting to my chat messages? _They're reacting to my chat messages?!_

"Very well. Come aboard, and take a seat wherever you like." The orange cat boards the trolley from the other side.

I tap the WASD keys a few times, just to make sure I'm still in control. I look around a bit at my room, feeling all of a sudden like I'm being watched. I look back at the game. The four talking cats are still in the trolley in the Garry's Mod window, waiting for me.

Somewhat robotically (actually very robotically), I force myself to move my character out into the tunnel, up the steps of the trolley car, and towards the seats on either side. I first attempt to crouch-jump into one of the seats, but then I experimentally press E on one of them and my character slides into the seat more naturally. I look around at the interior, still bewildered. The center of the passenger area has a cat-head-shaped separator, funnily enough. The seats are kind of blurry, but the cats look… remarkably detailed up close. I'm pretty I set my graphics options to medium…

"You'll want to fasten yourself securely in your seat, and brace yourself," says the orange cat next to me. "The first few trips through the void can be… disorienting."

I panic a little at the words in my ears, and hastily type out a response.

 **Me:** What do you mean "the void"???

"don't worry about it HIT IT, PIPES"

The trolley immediately races forward. A radio at the front of the trolley car sparks to life, blasting my ears with smooth jazz.

I'm rooted to my seat, only able to watch as the trolley bursts through the end of the tunnel and emerges into a beautiful, pink, crystalline void. The trolley is no longer on tracks but on a winding highway, twisting and bending on its way to the horizon.

Everything and nothing passes by us on either side. The cellist sets one foot out the door at waves at a vacationing zombie on a floating isle. I barely catch it before the highway suddenly turns upwards and our velocity increases.

I look around my room again, just to remind myself that I'm not actually on this Phantom Tollbooth-esque trip.

I look back, and the trolley seems to have caught itself in some kind of eternal loop. The void spins around us. A piece of the loop shatters into rubble, and the tables are turned – the trolley is now spinning through the void, waves of energy tunneling around our cat-train-shaped missile.

The void slowly began to clear, and through the constantly rotating windows of the trolley I could barely make out a shape… Some kind of building complex, silhouetted by the sun, amidst a purple sea…?

The jazz music abruptly stops. Blackness, then a modified loading screen appears.

 

**WELCOME TO JAZZTRONAUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

 

**YOU'RE LOADING:**

**jazz_bar**

 

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Back to reality, then. At the end of the day, this is still just a Garry's Mod.

But what IS it, exactly? Who made it? And how have I never heard about this before?

I Alt-Tab while the new level's loading and open up a browser window. I search for 'Jazztronauts.' The only results I get are for a band based in San Francisco. Looking at their site, I hardly get the sense that they're also secretly undercover modders looking to promote their band in a twelve-year-old conversion of a video game engine.

I rest my elbows on my computer desk and rub my eyes, then stare at the starry screensaver in the background of the loading screen.

Oh well, it wasn't like I had anything better to do with my evenings. Why not solve a mystery?


End file.
